Increasing exercise but nowhere near 21 hours!!

jordymils

I've just been having a look at the scooby calculator and I can't quite understand why the next level up from 5-6 hours of exercise is 7-21 hours... There is SUCH a big gap there - how does it work out?!

A little info:
I started my reset 8-9 weeks ago and plan on going until the end of the month and then starting 10% cut. But instead of cutting calories I will be increasing my training. This was a plan anyway, but I've just been waiting til I get to cut so that my new increased TDEE -10% would be the same as my current TDEE, so I didn't have to change my intake. Hope that makes sense!!
Currently I'm going by 3-5 hours moderate exercise. I do crossfit 4 times a week and sometimes walk once or twice but not for more than 20-30 mins (more out of boredom than anything). I don't have a sedentary job but also not an overly active one (although I guess that will also change when I start properly working as a PT hopefully in the next few weeks). In the next week or so I will be increasing my training to a minimum of 6-7 crossfit sessions, plus the odd walks. Some weeks will be more, probably 8-9 sessions.

So my question - is the 7-21 hours of exercise not a gross overestimate given the huge range of hours, and will this throw off my results?
I'm currently eating 2315 for maintenance at 3-5 hours moderate exercise. My TDEE -10% for 5-6 hours strenuous is 2319 but my TDEE -10% for the next level up of 7-21 hours strenuous is 2554 which is a big difference. I only want to lose 5-10kg, hence the small deficit.

I know that crossfit IS strenuous and my body needs adequate fuel for my training, and I really don't want to be doing my body a disservice and undo the time I've put in to the reset, but I also don't want to go the other way and over eat... Thoughts?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for my ramblings!!

FitterBody

Which Scooby Calculator are you using? The fast, or the accurate? On the accurate, if you want to get really accurate you need to follow his instructions and enter a "Calibration Factor" in step 9.

See his "calorie-calculator-calibration" link for how to do it (takes a month of logging to calibrate). and that will supposedly improve the usual +/- 10% accuracy to be more accurate than +/- 10%.

(Provided, of course that your exercise is fairly consistent regarding effort expended and exercise duration.)

heybales

I've just been having a look at the scooby calculator and I can't quite understand why the next level up from 5-6 hours of exercise is 7-21 hours... There is SUCH a big gap there - how does it work out?!

A little info:
I started my reset 8-9 weeks ago and plan on going until the end of the month and then starting 10% cut. But instead of cutting calories I will be increasing my training. This was a plan anyway, but I've just been waiting til I get to cut so that my new increased TDEE -10% would be the same as my current TDEE, so I didn't have to change my intake. Hope that makes sense!!
Currently I'm going by 3-5 hours moderate exercise. I do crossfit 4 times a week and sometimes walk once or twice but not for more than 20-30 mins (more out of boredom than anything). I don't have a sedentary job but also not an overly active one (although I guess that will also change when I start properly working as a PT hopefully in the next few weeks). In the next week or so I will be increasing my training to a minimum of 6-7 crossfit sessions, plus the odd walks. Some weeks will be more, probably 8-9 sessions.

So my question - is the 7-21 hours of exercise not a gross overestimate given the huge range of hours, and will this throw off my results?
I'm currently eating 2315 for maintenance at 3-5 hours moderate exercise. My TDEE -10% for 5-6 hours strenuous is 2319 but my TDEE -10% for the next level up of 7-21 hours strenuous is 2554 which is a big difference. I only want to lose 5-10kg, hence the small deficit.

I know that crossfit IS strenuous and my body needs adequate fuel for my training, and I really don't want to be doing my body a disservice and undo the time I've put in to the reset, but I also don't want to go the other way and over eat... Thoughts?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for my ramblings!!

Those TDEE levels are based on a straight line formula from a 1919 study.

You literally can enter whatever number of hours you want to into the formula and your best estimated BMR and get the TDEE calories.

To simplify things at some point someone took the formula and came up with some common ranges of hours, originally days.

The formula is here, you can skip how to correct your hrs unless you do a lot of walking.

As you can imagine, 1 hr of walking is not the same as 1 hr of crossfit or running or lifting.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1018770-better-rough-tdee-estimate-than-5-level-chart

The other option, is if you have some idea of calorie burns during the crossfit, just add up the week of calories from that and anything else for exercise. Divide by 7, there is daily avg burn from exercise.

Do your BMR x 1.25 if sedentary otherwise during the day (use Katch BMR and 1.20 though) = sedentary TDEE + avg exercise burn = TDEE.

Take your deficit.

jordymils

Those TDEE levels are based on a straight line formula from a 1919 study.

You literally can enter whatever number of hours you want to into the formula and your best estimated BMR and get the TDEE calories.

To simplify things at some point someone took the formula and came up with some common ranges of hours, originally days.

The formula is here, you can skip how to correct your hrs unless you do a lot of walking.

As you can imagine, 1 hr of walking is not the same as 1 hr of crossfit or running or lifting.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1018770-better-rough-tdee-estimate-than-5-level-chart

The other option, is if you have some idea of calorie burns during the crossfit, just add up the week of calories from that and anything else for exercise. Divide by 7, there is daily avg burn from exercise.

Do your BMR x 1.25 if sedentary otherwise during the day (use Katch BMR and 1.20 though) = sedentary TDEE + avg exercise burn = TDEE.

Take your deficit.

Thanks for the responses.

Heybales - I have just used that basic formula from your other post and calculated my activity time as 9 hours (2 hours to account for general weekly activity and 7 hours of crossfit) and it has come up with my TDEE as 2967 and TDEE -10% cut as 2670. These numbers are even higher than the scooby calculator on 7-21 hours of exercise.
Just wondering how accurate/reliable that method is compared to scooby?

I will have a look at your spreadsheet and redo my numbers there to get a better idea when I have some time tomorrow, but it just seems like SO much to eat.
Although, I guess if I am nearly doubling my training then it makes sense, but not sure if it's over inflated??


FitterBody - I'll have a look at the calibration too. Thanks

heybales

Thanks for the responses.

Heybales - I have just used that basic formula from your other post and calculated my activity time as 9 hours (2 hours to account for general weekly activity and 7 hours of crossfit) and it has come up with my TDEE as 2967 and TDEE -10% cut as 2670. These numbers are even higher than the scooby calculator on 7-21 hours of exercise.
Just wondering how accurate/reliable that method is compared to scooby?

I will have a look at your spreadsheet and redo my numbers there to get a better idea when I have some time tomorrow, but it just seems like SO much to eat.
Although, I guess if I am nearly doubling my training then it makes sense, but not sure if it's over inflated??


FitterBody - I'll have a look at the calibration too. Thanks

Scooby uses the same formula actually. They all do if it's the 5 level TDEE chart.
Further down that other topic is another post with the activity factors and the data points that make up the formula.

Until you get to that upper level that really has no normal matching activity factor, anything above Very Active is either the typically Extremely active, or whatever they personalize it too, and then the activity factor is totally unknown too.

Like, it's obvious that anywhere between 7 and 21 hrs of exercise cannot possibly be the same amount of TDEE.

So your 7 hrs of just your exercise already puts you in to top level.
And it sounds like just your daily activity, work perhaps, by itself, makes you Lightly Active.

You are basically adding the 2 together, because they of course both count - but the 5 TDEE level chart has no way to account for daily activity time over sedentary - i think it's major flaw.

I'll be curious what the spreadsheet says in comparison. As long as you used Katch BMR in the other 2 places.
Oh, crossfit is high cardio, not lifting, in regards to calorie burn. You have very little rest time between lifts I've been told normally.

jordymils

Scooby uses the same formula actually. They all do if it's the 5 level TDEE chart.
Further down that other topic is another post with the activity factors and the data points that make up the formula.

Until you get to that upper level that really has no normal matching activity factor, anything above Very Active is either the typically Extremely active, or whatever they personalize it too, and then the activity factor is totally unknown too.

Like, it's obvious that anywhere between 7 and 21 hrs of exercise cannot possibly be the same amount of TDEE.

So your 7 hrs of just your exercise already puts you in to top level.
And it sounds like just your daily activity, work perhaps, by itself, makes you Lightly Active.

You are basically adding the 2 together, because they of course both count - but the 5 TDEE level chart has no way to account for daily activity time over sedentary - i think it's major flaw.

I'll be curious what the spreadsheet says in comparison. As long as you used Katch BMR in the other 2 places.
Oh, crossfit is high cardio, not lifting, in regards to calorie burn. You have very little rest time between lifts I've been told normally.

Alright so I've just redone my numbers in the spreadsheet. Unfortunately I forgot to weigh/measure before I had breakfast so I'm not sure how much that would change my stats. I also didn't have a rest day yesterday, but I almost never weight after a rest day. I know I should, but given that I've been weighing after a training day for a while now, I figure it's more accurate to stick to the same routine.

Anyway, the spreadsheet says my BMR is 1518 (a little higher than scooby) and my TDEE based on 7 hours total exercise is 2585 - almost the same as what scooby says for 5-6 hours exercise. It also says my BF is average 24.3%, which I'm not sure I believe. Pretty sure it would be higher. I'm at the end of my reset now and my scales (which I know are an estimate) say BF is around 30%.

As for crossfit - I do 6 standard sessions a week plus one lifting session working on olympic lifting etc, which is heavy lifting with rest breaks. About 80% of standard crossfit sessions involve heavy strength training at the start of the session for about 15 mins, with appropriate rest breaks between sets, and then the rest of the session is 'high cardio' I guess, with little to no rest break between lifts and exercises. So for the spreadsheet I divided my exercise time between high cardio and weight lifting, with a little more in the high cardio line....

heybales

Considering Scooby's Most Accurate option gives you the option to use Katch, Mifflin, or Harris BMR, the Katch BMR will be the same.
Scooby, and the spreadsheet, are using standard formulas. Don't put a BF% figure in the sheet, you'll probably get the same Mifflin BMR as Scooby.
But do you want best estimate if it's available? Then use Katch which requires BF%. Scooby has that too.

What was the range for the 2 bodyfat calc's? Did you get a notice you do read well, or do not, for BF% measurement?
And if you are using the scale correctly (check manual), then there is a field to avg that in too, because they can be 5% accurate too if used correctly.

That's good to know about the cross-fit, thanks for explaining the clear division they do. I'll remember that when ones ask, divide out the true lifting portion from the strength cardio portion. 15 min is enough to count different.
And that really counts when doing 6 sessions.

jordymils

What was the range for the 2 bodyfat calc's? Did you get a notice you do read well, or do not, for BF% measurement?
And if you are using the scale correctly (check manual), then there is a field to avg that in too, because they can be 5% accurate too if used correctly.

The two BF% from the spreadsheet are 25.37% (US navy method) and 18.66% (covert bailey method). I don't quite understand how there can be such a huge difference between the two, given the same measurements and info...

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Did you get a notice you do read well, or do not, for BF% measurement?"

As for the scale, I don't think it is a super high tech one and from memory when I went through the manual and set it up with my stats the first time, it didn't say anything about averaging it out, but I'll have another look. Are you able to explain how that would work, to average it out to 5% accuracy? I thought the way it works is by sending electrical pulses through the body to see what is more like fat and what is more like muscle or other tissue... But I could definitely be wrong!!

heybales

Right under where it says the average of the 2 calcs - it literally will say "your body measures well" or "your body may not measure well" depending on how close they are.
Yours will say "does NOT measure well" because the spread is over 5%.

The reason they may not agree is because they do NOT actually use the same measurements, in fact, those 2 are selected because they use almost totally different measurements and therefore help balance out any measurements out of proportion to the others. And they are considered the best measurement calcs.
Like if you had skinny wrists but chubby forearms, or skinny calf but big thigh, ect. You may know on your body which measurement is probably throwing one or the other off, because it's always been out of proportion, even at goal weight.

And as inches drop, that average self-adjusts to more accurate. Unless you just happen to have, say, a J Lo big booty - something like that would throw it off even at goal weight.
So you could literally see avg BF% go up as weight and inches drop. It's not that you gained BF, but rather the calcs got more accurate and you were actually higher already.

As to your scale, the comment about 5% is not an ability to get yours to 5%, but rather those scales in general can be that accurate. Some are much and always worse, but they are consistent, and will be great at showing a direction. But they could be 7% off one direction always. But since always, they will drop the figure as it really happens.
Others could be 5% accurate, but the actual measurement will bounce around within that 5%, so you get up and down readings constantly, never knowing a direction you are going.

I've seen differences in instructions to have moist feet, to have dry feet, in morning, in late afternoon, some specific about following a rest day (always good idea anyway), some don't mention that though it matters. Where they mention it could be buried too.

jordymils

Ah ok yep the spreadsheet says "your body may not measure well for BF% calculator currently", so I'll keep updating stats on there and using it and my scales as a guideline. I know both a graph like yours and BF scales are never going to be completely accurate but it's a good way to measure progress.

I do have a question about the TDEE and TDEG on your spreadsheet though. It has given me a TDEE of 2582 based on 7 hours of training which is similar to scooby, but it has suggested a TDEG of 2132, which is a 17.4% deficit. Is there a reason that it would suggest a larger deficit? I'm a little wary of going anywhere over the 10-15% mark, especially after everything I've read in the EM2WL info suggests starting at a 10% deficit so there is more room to move later on...

heybales

Ah ok yep the spreadsheet says "your body may not measure well for BF% calculator currently", so I'll keep updating stats on there and using it and my scales as a guideline. I know both a graph like yours and BF scales are never going to be completely accurate but it's a good way to measure progress.

I do have a question about the TDEE and TDEG on your spreadsheet though. It has given me a TDEE of 2582 based on 7 hours of training which is similar to scooby, but it has suggested a TDEG of 2132, which is a 17.4% deficit. Is there a reason that it would suggest a larger deficit? I'm a little wary of going anywhere over the 10-15% mark, especially after everything I've read in the EM2WL info suggests starting at a 10% deficit so there is more room to move later on...

Two reasons for a bigger deficit being given.

If you have a lot to lose, your body should be more willing to part with only fat and retain muscle mass. Studies show that happens, morbid obese being able to do 4-5 lbs weekly for 4-6 weeks before needing to back off. That's 30-35% sometimes.
But that's in a study with tests and Dr supervision.

Without that, the spreadsheet stops at BMR in those cases.

Other reason is if you are lifting decent amount compared to high cardio. Lifting retains muscle mass, cardio can actually cause problems retaining it.
So if more or only lifting, bigger deficit than if you didn't do it. Steep deficits with resistance training has shown no muscle mass loss, and actually some gains in LBM and maybe muscle mass, when reasonable deficit.

So TDEG is max for fat/weight loss with minimal/no risk of muscle mass loss. It's not for performance though. If newbie to lifting, you'll keep making improvements, but you'll tap out earlier with bigger deficit.

So you can view your TDEG as max safe deficit to retain muscle mass. You can always chose to lose less.

jordymils

Two reasons for a bigger deficit being given.

If you have a lot to lose, your body should be more willing to part with only fat and retain muscle mass. Studies show that happens, morbid obese being able to do 4-5 lbs weekly for 4-6 weeks before needing to back off. That's 30-35% sometimes.
But that's in a study with tests and Dr supervision.

Without that, the spreadsheet stops at BMR in those cases.

Other reason is if you are lifting decent amount compared to high cardio. Lifting retains muscle mass, cardio can actually cause problems retaining it.
So if more or only lifting, bigger deficit than if you didn't do it. Steep deficits with resistance training has shown no muscle mass loss, and actually some gains in LBM and maybe muscle mass, when reasonable deficit.

So TDEG is max for fat/weight loss with minimal/no risk of muscle mass loss. It's not for performance though. If newbie to lifting, you'll keep making improvements, but you'll tap out earlier with bigger deficit.

So you can view your TDEG as max safe deficit to retain muscle mass. You can always chose to lose less.

I've already lost 30kg (although gained 3kg back during reset) so don't have that much to lose, I'd say another 10kg at the most but probably around the 7kg mark...

I'm not a newbie to lifting at all and I'd say I do about 40% heavy lifting and 60% high cardio (but crossfit so almost entirely resistance training) so I think I'll try a 15% deficit and see how I go.

Thanks so much, once again, for your help and explanations.